By Tommy Osborne

City Council Recap

City Council recap: downtown revitalization dominates conversation

Dec 16, 2024 | 11:35 PM

*More details on the topics discussed in this recap will be published in the coming days.*

PRINCE GEORGE – Transforming downtown Prince George was the huge topic of the night at Monday’s City Council meeting, as several plans and options were discussed as to how to revitalize the downtown core for the generations to come. Mayor Simon Yu brought forward a plan that he believes would transform Prince George into one of the greatest cities of the country, if not the planet. Believing Prince George to be a world leader in many ways, Yu’s plan would bring many huge plans, including but not limited to:

• A new performing arts centre, which he calls the centrepiece of the development.
• A new Kopar Arena seating 5000.
• A Lheidli T’enneh Plaza built above existing infrastructure like Patricia Boulevard. This space would be connected on the second floor of the Prince George Public Library and the Civic Centre, and would be an open plaza space built over what already exists underneath.
• A new orchestra hall and/or IMAX Theatre.
• An ampitheatre.
• A rapid transit line.
• A new hotel and apartments.

Described as “audacious” by Councillor Trudy Klassen and several others, this plan was met with many questions from Council, primarily around the feasibility of it and how it would be funded. Yu admits the plans may be too “grandiose” for some, but he insists an endgame must be in place for revitalizing Prince George, and in order to avoid issues you have to have a longterm vision, rather than focus on just addressing needs one at a time. As for how this would be paid for, Yu says private investment and funding would be a requirement for this to work, as it would be an impossible burden for taxpayers to support on their own.

Immediately after Yu’s vision was presented to council, City staff presented its civic core district concept plans. This saw an extensive amount of discussion surrounding the specifics of how the City could go about implementing aspects, or the entirety of the plan. This plan was similar to Yu’s plan in that it’s a longterm vision, although it is considerably smaller in scope. Two separate plans were created, but they shared some similarities, being:

City Council Recap

City Council recap: downtown revitalization dominates conversation

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• A new performing arts centre seating 800
• a new Kopar Arena seating 4500
• Mixed use hotel and mixed use residential
• Creation of a park/open space

The differences between the two plans were based on location of the new buildings, which in turn brought other considerations like road planning, capacity discussions, and more.

After a lengthy discussion surrounding the specifics of the motion, City Council passed a motion that read:

“That Council IDENTIFIES Conceptual Design Option 2 as attached to the report dated November 28,2024 from the Director of Planning and Development titled “Civic Core District Concept Plan Options” as the preferred option and DIRECTS Administration to procure consultant services to prepare detailed site design, servicing feasibility studied (i.e.: sanitary sewer, water, and storm). Parking and pedestrian analysis and renderings: and incorporates the following considerations into the site design:

• Swap location of the proposed hotel and residential building and incorporate the possibility of mixed commercial/residential/hotel on both sites, and possibility of further sale of airspace of the PAC:
• Include a partitioned auditorium with seating of a range of approximately 1400 seats and a multi-purpose use seating system for the Performing Arts Centre: and that the building possibly include a rehearsal/blackbox space:
• Include the arts groups (eg. Studio 2880) in the layout of the site plan:
• Consider the future land use of the Prince George Playhouse property, and:
• Maintain open-ended seating for the Arena with further exploration to help determine the best facility to meet our communities needs.”

What this means is that this is the direction council will take, and has directed administration to act as such as plans continue to get developed and the specifics of how this plan will be implemented will continue to be discussed.

Conceptual Design Option 2, as provided in a City of Prince George document

Also, a long awaited move for downtown business owners was passed by council, as a pilot program to bring security cameras to downtown was unanimously passed. Costing the City $40,000, this pilot program will see Downtown Prince George and the Prince George Chamber of Commerce work together to get the security cameras installed and monitored, with locations still undetermined. While concerns were raised by some councillors regarding ongoing funding and potential costs associated with expanding, this is just a pilot program that leaves the City off the hook for any future expansion costs. If the pilot program is successful, it’s possible expansion becomes a topic at a later City Council meeting but this remains to be seen.

Finally, all of City Council voted in favour of publishing a letter of intent to host the Special Olympics Canada Games for either 2028 or 2030. Citing a huge economic opportunity, as well as a chance to further improve Prince George’s reputation as a great destination for hosting events, council agreed that taking this first step to try and host the Special Olympics Canada Games would be a great move for Prince George.

More details on these stories will be published in the coming days.

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